NSW Central Coast engineer-turned-entrepreneur Craig De Leon revolutionised towing in Australasia when he conceived a “brake-through” for caravan and camper trailer owners wanting to hire out their equipment.
The biggest obstacle was the brake controller. Traditionally, people wanting to tow had to hard-wire a brake controller directly into their vehicle through the dashboard. But the approach had limitations, not the least being every time they changed or updated their tow vehicle, they had to fit another electric brake controller.
Craig viewed the dilemma as an opportunity and developed a simple “plug + play” adapter. It connects his Elecbrakes unit to the trailer plugs and vehicle socket. An accelerometer in the device measures changes in speed 1000 times per second to provide highly accurate proportional braking. It slows the trailer in proportion to the tow vehicle’s braking.
Elecbrakes is a fitting device in an age of ever-growing interconnectivity. The easily installed electric brake controller is operable from within the tow vehicle and has changed the face of towing in Australia and New Zealand.
“Australian laws require electric brakes for any trailer weighing more than 2000kg,” Craig says. “Elecbrakes differs from most of our competition. It is a trailer-mounted brake controller that requires no modifications to any tow vehicle. Instead, people can mount it directly to the drawbar of the trailer and it wires into the vehicle's brake light and taillight circuits to draw power.”
Brake controller units must be within reach of the driver. It’s one of the reasons owners traditionally mounted controllers in their vehicle’s cabin. Elecbrakes instead uses a Bluetooth remote control or a smartphone app. It supplies the same control and allows the user to remotely tweak the braking force of the trailer-mounted unit. The Bluetooth connection is reliable, but even if it disconnects, the trailer brakes continue to operate at the last-known settings.
Hunter Manufacturing Awards (HMA) appropriately presented its 2022 Excellence in Manufacturing Capability Award to Elecbrakes. HMA represents all businesses actively engaged in the manufacturing sector, including their allies, in the Upper Hunter, Lower Hunter, Central Coast, Lake Macquarie, Newcastle, Port Stephens, and Mid-North Coast regions. The awards inspire, encourage, and recognise vibrant and enduring manufacturing in these regions.
In recognising the growth of manufacturing in the Hunter and celebrating the innovations and commitment, HMA 2023 places a spotlight squarely on global reach. The organisation is keen to push the message of international opportunities and its tagline for 2023 is “made in the Hunter, for the world”.
Certainly, the Hunter’s industrial history and impressive transport infrastructure provide the region’s manufacturers with a compelling advantage as they make their forays into international markets. HMA encourages the growing and diverse base of established and emerging manufacturers of the region to use this advantage, look beyond Australia, and take their products and services to the international market.
Supplier unreliability forced Elecbrakes to take matters into its own hands and set up to manufacture components it had previously imported. Its own manufacturing line now produces the circuit boards and surface-mounted devices it requires. This has almost doubled productivity.
“Our goal is to become the No.1 brake controller supplier in Australia and New Zealand,” Craig says. “We will get there. We are here to revolutionise the customer experience. And we like the idea of expanding. Other international markets are on our radar.”
